Chinese semiconductor thread II
- Thread starter vincent
- Start date
The production capacity of mainland China's semiconductor manufacturers will increase 12% year-on-year in 2023, reaching 7.6 million wafers per month. Mainland Chinese chipmakers are expected to start operating 18 projects in 2024, with production capacity increasing 13% year-on-year in 2024, reaching 8.6 million wafers per month
And this is happening with the release of the Iphone 15.
Wait till the Mate Pro 70 hits with the SMIC 5nm in autumn with Apple release "bump" in the rearview mirror. That'll be a doozy!
China's IC research capabilities will surge forward.
Not only that, China will start setting own standards.
Collaboration is always good. But it does come with some baggage especially if you are like China where you are near peers to Western institutions who because of seniority will almost always impose their standards. This was not an issues when China was on the lower end of the tech curve.
But now China is ready to set its own standards and this will remove hindrance.
This will be the new battle of US for 2024.
Eventually they will succeed as they did in 2023 with blocking ASML DUVi...but it will take them many months....this is also an election year in US, Dutch government will procrastinate as long as they can, eventually to reach November election and hoping for the best with the new administration. It is very clear to everybody that these kind of export controls are done in the only interest of US: Holland and Japan have no interest at all in shooting themselves in the foot....so they will resist as much as they can.
OTH China really has to close the gap in chemicals, both in technology and in volumes. The writing is on the wall since many years already, so no excuse to be caught off guard.
With ASML is more difficult, they have a huge installed base in China, a thousand of machines, that will remain a liability for China for years to come. While China can replace Japan chemicals quite readily (a mystery why they didn't already), they cannot do this with such huge litho installed base.
for the latter, it takes time to build up volume. especially for something like photoresists, qualification takes years. fabs are motivated by short term surival. so they are not going to qualify something until it's absolutely ready.